Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a microscope tube lens, a microscope apparatus and an image pickup optical system.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, accompanying the remarkable increase in the number of pixels of an image pickup element, expectation has become higher for microscope apparatuses that realize observation and image acquisition with a wide field of view and high resolution. For example, when such a microscope apparatus is applied to the field of virtual slide, higher scanning speeds can be attained. Also, when such a microscope apparatus is applied to the fields of the brain research etc., observation is made possible in which cells are studied in detail while viewing the entire brain containing the cells in a real-time manner.
In order to realize such a microscope apparatus, an objective with a wide field of view is employed, and thus tube lenses that can sufficiently bring out the performance of such objectives are desired. A tube lens is described in for example Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 04-093911.